St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1887-07-23
THE ideal" DRESS.
why We Have Not Got it-A Question to
be Solved by the Future.
JENNY JUNE.

JENNY JUNE.
"Why don't you women work out an
ideal dress for yourselves?' asks some mas
culine every once in while. Naturally
he does not get a satisfactory answer because
the subject is in itself incapable of satisfac-
tory solution at present, and time does
not admit of replying to questions which
are to be answered by the Developments OF
eternity. Still, there is something to be
said upon the ways in which certain indl-
viduals have put the question to themselves
and answered it. And how is 1t that
thought and reason and sense seem to be
eliminated from the minds of others, at
least so far as the dress question is con-
cerned?
A truly ideal dress is duly adapted to ideal
circumstances and conditions. and these do
not exist-they can only exist approx
mately-for any one, for all, are subject 70
chances and changes to heat and cold, TO
mud and dirt, and the wear and tear which
come of use, of the exercise of our faculties.
An ideal dress, even if ''it were not limited
by fashion," would not mean the same thing
in our climate two days in succession. with
the thermometer at $50 in the shade, 1t would
be the lightest kind of skirts and sacque;
with the thermometer down to zero, it would
be % many layers of wool, and as much edg-
ing of soft fur as one could carry.
This is about all we have arrived at in the
wsy of comfortable dress, viewed from the
ordinary standpoint. The higher standpoint
we have net vet reached. There are women
who know that an ideal dress would be SIM
ply one that most truly fulfilled its function
of covering and frightening the beauty of
the human form-that it must not distort
it, that it must not add disfiguring elements
to it, that it must not prevent its natural de-
velopment. Further, that it must follow its
lines, that it must possess softness and grace
and suggest lovely possibilities and harmo-
MES of color. We have all seen jointed dolls;
we know how they look. Fashion has not
got beyond the jointed-doll period. 1t cuts
the dress to pieces and puts it together again
then covers the skeleton with masses Of over
laying material and garniture. 1t has no ar
tistic conception of the beauty of long lines
and natural curves it deals in angles and
fractures. If it stumbles on good thing it
ID by accident and its next effort is to spoil it
90 it will not become permanent.
Fashion has no foundation in sense or rea-
son, and it cannot therefore be expected to
act as a moral agent. Moral and useful
agencies act as hindrances to the autocratic
action of its whims and caprices, and are,
therefore, opposed by it, and to it; and those
women who are actuated by the force of moral
principle have always, and must always,
either ignore it or modify it SO that it shall
conflict rs little as possible with their knowl-
edge of what duty demands of them. 1t is to
such women, more than to any Others that
we probably owe the advance that has been
made from time to time all along the line OF
our dress.
Ultra reformers donot accomplish the work
they set out to do. They excite little agi-
tation among extremists like themselves, but
they are usually ignorant of fundamental
principles. and only confirm an opposition
in its own sways, or create q reactionary
movement, which leaves the main question
where it was before. All natural movement
seems to be spiral. We travel around in an
apparent circle, but when we have gone
around we do not arrive at precisely the
same place from which we started. We are
little higher up-a little further advanced.
Fifty years ago women were going through,
had been through, the Josephine period, the
short-waisted and gored-skirted goddess
period. They were not human or mortal;
they were ethereal. They did not require
warmth or comfort from their clothing, and
to suggest it was u detract from their idyllic
character. The straight gossamer skirts and
baby bodice had been the reaction from the
stif-quilted petticoat, the sacque waist, OF
''skort gown which had preceded it, and
for which the boned and boarded ''stays"
and long-pointed bodice were only substl-
tuted on occasions.
No question of lungs or heart or liver. of
natural development or disturbance of ma
ternal function seems to have entered the
common mind it was simply that fashion
ordained so and So and fashion must be
obeyed. Disease and death were affairs with
which people themselves had nothing to do;
they were matters of direct lnterposltlon on
the part of the Almighty. 1t is a little curl
Gus that better teaching and knowledge of
physiology did not come from physicians to
the masses, but from scholars and students
TO physicians who rather hindered than
helped the spread Of physiological facts
among their patients.
We rail against the corset of to-day, but
what gentle persuader it is compared with
the instrument Of torture it was only fifty
years ago! 1t has always been the centre, SO
10 speak, of the dress question. Get rid of it,
get rid of it! is the cry always of the re-
formers But it has not been gotten rid OF:
X. 1..th JY,fy ff,